Tim James's thoughts about South Africa's wines.

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SA’s top reds, sparklings and fortifieds

Following on the Top 20 Wineries, and the leading white wines, here are the results of the remaining categories I asked an international panel to vote on (I’ll append the names of the complete panel below, although just a few of them did not participate in the voting on individual wines).

While it had proved easy to get a plausible list of Top 5 White Wines, the same pattern did not happen with the reds, and after the first three the number of votes fell away dramatically. Also very different from the whites, some of which came from wineries that didn’t themselves make it into the Top 20 Wineries list – the red winners came from the three highest-placed wineries on that list.

The clear winner was Sadie Family Columella (with 16 votes), the blend of syrah and 18%ish mourvèdre. The winery also got votes for two wines in the Old Vineyard Series: Pofadder (cinsaut) and Soldaat (grenache).

Second place went to Kanonkop Paul Sauer, the overperforming, internationally underpriced Bordeaux-style wine from Stellenbosch (14 votes). Mullineux Family got third place with their Schist Syrah (10 votes) – but they also received 4 votes for the other of their released single-origin syrahs, Granite, as well as 3 voted for their (again overperforming and underpriced blended Syrah).

Some way behind, two wines tied with 6 votes each: another Bordeaux-blend, the Mvemve-Raats De Compostella, and Newton Johnson Pinot Noir. But it must be emphatically noted that the Newton Johnson vote was also diluted – there were votes for two of their single-vineyard pinots: Windansea (4) and Block 6 (2).

There was a total of 46 wines nominated for the Top 5 Reds – but more than half, 25, received only one vote.

Top 3 Sparkling WinesBecause it is a much smaller category, I asked for only 3 nominations from the voters. It’s tempting to call the result a tie, for reasons you will discern. At least there is no doubt which three wineries triumphed. Most votes (12) went to Villiera Monro Brut. Graham Beck Blanc de Blancs got 10 votes, but there were 7 votes for the same house’s Cuvée Clive, and 2 more for the Brut Zero. Silverthorn – by far the youngest of these three producers of méthode cap classique wines – received a total of 12 votes: 7 for the Green Man Blanc de Blancs and 5 for Jewel Box. Colmant was just outside the list. (It’s maybe worth noting again, to understand the mindset of the voters, that none of the these producers made it into the Top 20 Wineries.)